Support for Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has continued to decline among Americans, with an apparent generational shift emerging among Republicans over the issue, according to a recent poll.
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An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey of 3,040 U.S. adults last month found that about a third of them, including about half of Democrats, believe Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians since the Hamas terrorist attack against them on Oct. 7, 2023.
The attack, which killed approximately 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis, prompted a retaliatory response from Israel against Hamas in Gaza, which led to more than 70,000 Palestinian deaths, according to figures from the Hamas-run Gazan Ministry of Health that were reportedly confirmed by Israeli military officials earlier this year.
While young Republicans are still much more pro-Israel than young Democrats, they are less uniformly supportive than older Republicans, according to the AP poll that recorded genocide perceptions, views on U.S. aid levels and favorability toward Netanyahu.
Only 13% of Republicans described Israel’s actions against Palestinians as genocide, though the poll showed a growing generational divergence that indicates softening support and greater criticism toward Israel among those under 45.
Approximately two in 10 Republicans under 45 claim Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians, compared to about one in 10 Republicans aged 45 and older.
Republicans under 45 are also more likely than older Republicans to say the U.S. is “too supportive” of Israel, with younger Republicans also more likely to tilt unfavorably in their opinions of Netanyahu.
Sixty percent of Republicans overall described U.S. support for Israel as “about right,” though the poll found that the number of Republicans who say the U.S. is “not supportive enough” has declined from 39% to 15% since 2024.
The new AP poll shows trends that have been reflected in other polls conducted in recent months, such as a Pew Research Center survey released in April that found 60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel.
A majority of Jewish Americans and white Evangelicals continued to hold generally positive opinions of the country, according to the Pew survey, though 70% of those aged 18-49, including 57% of Republicans in that age bracket, had an unfavorable view.
A poll from NBC News in March found support for Israel has declined among all age groups since 2023, with the sharpest decline taking place among those aged 18-34, almost two-thirds of whom expressed a “negative” view of the country.
In what NBC described as a “sea change” regarding voters’ opinions on the topic at the time, the poll of 1,000 registered voters conducted from Feb. 27 through March 3 found that 63% of voters under age 35 have a negative view of Israel, compared to just 13% who have a positive view and 23% who hold a neutral view.
A shift also appears to have taken place among young American Evangelicals, with the number who support Israel and see it as crucial to the End Times steadily declining even before the war in Gaza, according to a series of surveys in the 2023 book Christian Zionism in the Twenty-First Century: American Evangelical Opinion on Israel.
Experts who spoke to The Christian Post in 2024 offered various explanations for such a trend among Evangelical young people, ranging from the antisemitic influence of cultural Marxism in U.S. universities to increased exposure to Christian eschatology that differs from premillennial dispensationalism, which emphasizes the role of modern Israel in the latter days.
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This article was originally published at The Christian Post. Photo Credit: shavnya.com on Unsplash.
